The BCS Hires Ari Fleischer To Save Its Reputation

It’s not defending the Iraq War, but ex-Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer is taking on a very tough sales job.

WSJ: Next up: college football’s much-maligned process for determining an annual national champion, the Bowl Championship Series. The BCS announced over the weekend that Fleischer’s firm has been brought in to help highlight the “positive” aspects of the BCS, which uses a headache-inducing ranking system to pick the two teams that should battle for the national title.

Fleischer, who also has worked with Major League Baseball and the U.S. Olympic Committee, said in an email that “Politics was a walk in the park compared to sports. People REALLY care about this stuff.”

He added that one difference between politics and the college football debate is that supporters of a national playoff haven’t coalesced around an alternative. “Opposing the BCS is easy – organising a real playoff is really hard,” he said.

The current system has plenty of critics. But, as the Journal notes, the fiercest opponents are those with ties to teams that aren’t among the traditional college powerhouses.

Pressure for a playoff system has increased recently with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch calling on President Obama to do something, upset that the undefeated Utah Utes didn’t play for the national championship last year.

Last year, President Obama said on 60 Minutes “I think any sensible person would say that if you’ve got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season and many of them have one loss or two losses [and] there’s no clear decisive winner, that we should be creating a playoff system.”